World collisions unfold through a gradual process.
First comes the dimensional gate. A gate opens that allows travel between the two worlds, and each side sends “one-way” attack forces or defense forces through it.
I say attack and defense, but… if they want exchange, they can send an envoy. They can send scouts. In any case, once the first contact between the two sides happens, the frequency of dimensional gates begins increasing.
Second comes the dimensional passage. A permanent, two-way route forms, allowing travel directly into the other world. That route gradually increases in number, and widens as well.
Third comes the dimensional rift. The surfaces of the two worlds begin to graft together, making it possible to cross over throughout the entire region.
Fourth comes dimensional fusion. At that point, there are only two choices left: complete coexistence with the other world, or eternal war. At this stage, if one world’s total score is at least twice the other’s, victory is awarded automatically.
As for me, during this “dimensional gate” stage, all I did was modify a few [Soil Jelly] and toss them into the enemy world. [Soil Jelly] altered through my Level 3 trait so they could consume not nectar, but ordinary organic matter as well.
What happens to my creations over there should be entertaining enough, but I am more curious about the reaction of whatever tries to attack my ecosystem.
What, exactly, will it think when it enters my ecosystem?
∞
Thinking about it now, it was an incredible stroke of luck. That was what Oswald, a player from Earth, thought.
A god had appeared through a game he used to play like a hopeless addict and pulled him into the world inside that game, saying he could become a god himself. He had had no lingering attachment to the real world, and the promise that he could become a genuine god had been enough to lure him in.
It might sound a little arrogant to say this, but he had been pretty good at [The Fantasy World Creator]. He could clear even the highest difficulty with ease, and he had won under all kinds of perverse playstyles, strange strategies, and unfavorable conditions.
And his luck had extended to the environment of the world he received at the start. About half the map consisted of a wide, clean oasis and suitable plains. There were no mountains or hills, which made defense difficult, but it was the ideal space for the classic strategy of farming, fishing, growing the population, and building a civilization.
The first thing Oswald did was create humanoid life-forms similar to himself, then give them plants, trees, and livestock so they could survive by farming and raising food.
As their population increased, they formed a society, extracted resources, developed technology, built culture, and came to understand mysticism well enough to create magic.
Oswald’s world looked roughly like this.
「Life LV.0: 56
Military LV.1: 114
Industry LV.0: 35
Technology LV.0: 50
Culture LV.0: 28
Politics LV.0: 64
Mysticism LV.0: 18
Faith LV.0: 25
Total LV.0: 390」
According to the angel, 390 points was above average. This was, after all, a game for deciding who would become a god, so there probably were not any catastrophically incompetent players in the pool. The gap between players might not be enormous, but… still, no matter which force he ran into, it looked winnable.
What mattered most was that he had pushed Military above 100 and leveled it up. Early on, everyone focused on internal development builds. His own army, strengthened with a Military trait, would be more than enough to smash an enemy army. After that, he could enslave the opposing species and use them to fill out the rest of his domestic-development categories.
Thinking that, Oswald selected the finest warriors from among the believers who worshiped him and dispatched them into the opposing world.
<Scout>ing the enemy world before launching an attack was basic practice. At first, the rules only matched you against broadly similar worlds, so there was no issue sending this many.
“Huh?”
And after seeing the enemy world through his warriors’ eyes, Oswald could only stare in horror.
“What the hell is this?”
There was no civilization in that world.
Everywhere he looked, there was nothing but sticky jellies, grotesque life-forms that looked as though they had mutated from those jellies, and sand and broken pebbles.
There was nothing. Nothing at all.
No people. No animals. No plants.
In that desolate world, devoid of absolutely everything, inedible jellies scurried around everywhere beneath an almost horrifying blaze of sunlight.
“Th-that’s impossible! What is this world?! How is anything supposed to live here?! I was told all the lands were balanced! What kind of world did the other player even get?”
Unable to believe it, he forced his horrified warriors forward and surveyed the environment.
Before long, they found a vast lake. It too was covered in insane quantities of jellies. And again, there was no civilization—just jellies everywhere.
“Level 3 《Nectar Spring》. Wait, what the hell. Level 3 《Nectar Spring》? How do you get 《Nectar Spring》 to Level 3 without a single world collision? No, wait, that’s not the problem. The…”
A warrior approached the lake, scooped up some of the “water,” and tasted it. He immediately spat the viscous liquid back out, then, pale with terror, offered up a prayer to the sky.
My god… I do not believe this is the nectar you spoke of…
Soft-yet-hard jellies writhed in his hand for a moment, then dropped back into the lake.
There was no nectar in this world.
No… more precisely, the spring that absorbed mana and produced nectar was still endlessly producing nectar from the bottom of the lake.
But there was no nectar left.
Every bit of nectar being produced was being consumed. All of it. The countless jellies that existed in this world were using all of it.
There was certainly a trace amount of nectar in the lake, but at the same time, it was crammed full of jellies made mostly of minerals—jellies that could not even be eaten.
My god. What are we supposed to fight here, and how are we supposed to win…? My god! Please answer me!
Oswald felt everything go dark before his eyes.
∞
Every warrior that invaded my ecosystem failed to consume the jellies and starved to death. Weaklings. They should have prepared by raising their <Life> level and toughening up their digestive systems.
As for the opposing player’s ecosystem: it was desert land too, but with a huge oasis where farming was possible and civilization could develop. The [Soil Jelly] I had thrown in there turned the oasis and all the fertile soil around it into nutritionally worthless sand, and their lake filled up with jellies.
They would not survive until the next harvest season. They would starve.
「The opposing player, ‘Oswald,’ has requested <Surrender>.」
“Surrender? Was there a system like that?”
“It’s a newly added feature. If they become a subordinate god under the opposing god, their soul is spared from erasure.”
“What are the benefits of accepting a surrender?”
“You gain a perfectly obedient slave. Once your world grows larger, you can even have them manage the finer details for you. You can also absorb everything in the opposing world peacefully.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Uh. Well… their soul is simply erased.”
“Any other benefits or drawbacks?”
“There are none. It was basically designed as a system to encourage players to accept surrender.”
I see. Then I refuse.
The fewer intelligent beings there are in this universe, the better.
My jellies continued destroying the ecosystem.
「The opposing player, ‘Oswald,’ has requested <Conversation>.」
「The opposing player, ‘Oswald,’ has requested <Conversation>.」
「The opposing player, ‘Oswald,’ has requested <Surrender>.」
「The opposing player, ‘Oswald,’ has requested <Surrender>.」
「The opposing player, ‘Oswald,’ has requested <Surrender>…」
Persistent bastard. I was not going to accept surrender.
“Can’t I block messages?”
“You can.”
“Then do it.”
「Player ‘Oswald’ has been blocked.」
In the end, one year later in world time, the opposing player’s species—disgustingly human-like things—had all starved to death, and their desert and lake had become packed with freshwater jellies that did not consume nectar.
「You have won the world collision against player ‘Oswald.’」
「Your world is expanding.」
The two worlds were stitched together, and my desert doubled in size. One half was the Dessert Desert, full of melted rock, jellies, and the 《Nectar Spring》. The other was the Oswald Desert, centered around a freshwater oasis, with marsh vegetation and the ruins of a destroyed civilization left behind. The two areas were similar in size.
“You won. With these jellies.”
“I couldn’t lose.”
I quite literally could not lose. For me to lose, the enemy would have to exterminate the very foundation of the ecosystem—the nectar oasis, and [Nectar Jelly], the original producer species.
How exactly would they do that? After repeated expansion, the diameter of 《Nectar Spring》 now exceeded one kilometer. From the surface down to a depth of fifteen meters, it was packed solid with [Nectar Jelly].
Well, maybe it would be possible if they bombarded it with area-of-effect magic. Or if they manufactured huge quantities of poison and spread it through the water. Or perhaps if fishermen spent years dragging nets through it in continuous eradication work. There were several possible methods.
But with the capabilities of a civilization that could not be higher than Level 1, it was absolutely impossible. They lacked the manpower and the technology.
And their lake had ended up serving as an excellent habitat for my jellies. At this stage, most other players only made things like aquatic plants or fish in their lakes. They did not create powerful predators capable of consuming any organic matter at all.
“So what will you do from here on out? Normally people seize the enemy civilization and enslave the enemy species, but your strategy is so bizarre I have absolutely no idea what you’re going to do.”
“My starting point is a desert, so the opponent was matched to desert terrain too. But after two or three more rounds, I’ll start getting opponents with terrain that isn’t desert. To prepare for that, I’ll evolve jellies that live off aquatic plants and fresh water instead of nectar. I’ll also make the puddings carnivorous in a way that lets them completely infiltrate and destroy the enemy ecosystem—an atrocious invasive species.”
“What about the plants and animals that exist in the Oswald Desert?”
“I’ll exterminate the plants. As for the animals that eat plants, I’ll modify them so they eat jellies. I’ll destroy everything a civilization could make use of and ensure that only my Dessert Legion can overwhelm every other ecosystem.”
“I see. Then you really aren’t going to build a civilization after all?”
No. I am not. There is no reason to. I will pour everything into the development of <Life> alone and use a perfect ecosystem to destroy civilizations that have half-baked technology or magic.
「As a victory reward, you have obtained a new world trait. World traits are applied to all creations you personally created, as well as all creations that flow in from outside.」
“In that case, I would propose the following traits for your world, Nonhuman.”
The angel floated three trait cards before my eyes.
『Construction Specialist: Your creations become skilled at civil engineering. This is advantageous for the development of <Industry>.』
『Technical Inspiration: Your creations are imbued with powerful technical inspiration. This is advantageous for the development of <Technology>.』
『High Intelligence: Your creations’ intelligence rises dramatically. Highly intelligent species are advantageous for the development of <Politics> and <Technology>.』
Was this angel picking a fight with me?
“No. I merely selected the choices that would be most helpful to your world’s ‘civilization.’”
I told you I was not going to raise something like that. Why did she keep trying to cram filthy intelligent species into my perfect ecosystem?
I looked over the choices for a moment, then something occurred to me.
“How far does ‘construction’ extend, exactly?”
“Naturally, construction refers to using external materials to make structures, or altering, removing, or creating naturally existing terrain and features into other forms in accordance with the purposes of intelligent species.”
After hearing that definition, I asked again.
“Does a beaver building a dam count as construction?”
“Huh? Uh… yes. Its intelligence is low, but it is obviously a case of civil engineering.”
“Then if unintelligent corals form colonies and create a massive coral reef, does that count as construction? They use externally obtained nutrients as materials, develop the structure of their own bodies, and in doing so create new terrain that other life-forms can inhabit.”
“…”
“…”
“I’ll have to contact upper management for a moment.”
The angel vanished from my sight, then returned a short while later and answered in a voice that sounded slightly on the verge of tears.
“Yes… I have received confirmation that although it is a completely biological mechanism, it does count as civil engineering.”
“Then I will choose 『Construction Specialist』.”
Having acquired the trait, I created a new life-form to make active use of it.
「[Sponge Pudding] has evolved into [Coral Guppy].」
The nectar oasis is far too meager. The goal is a nectar sea.
Just imagining that nectar sea filled with countless jellies and puddings, and the beautiful, magnificent Great Guppy Reef that will rise within it, is enough to make me excited.